


don't you dare look back

by lutzaussi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cycle Sport, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11250945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: Beer after two hundred miles of riding is pretty much the best.(for the kakairusummer2017 prompt: Bike Ride)





	don't you dare look back

So.

The biking thing.

It is difficult to explain. Yeah, saying that you bike competitively is an easy out, but then people started asking questions about “Why?” and “What about money?” and really it is just easier for Iruka to say he’s finishing school and considering his options. As opposed to Anko’s proclamations of going to the Olympics and Genma’s insistence that the whole thing is a hobby. The other two are varying degrees of asleep in the seats behind Iruka, and he blearily watches the forests of northwestern Washington pass by as Kurenai hums along with the music and drives.

The cycling season by the end of July is all but over, following the upcoming end of the Tour de France (another year for the Brits, Iruka has money on it) and the general public collectively forgetting that the Vuelta a España exists and is sort of a big deal. Most of the competitive college races are in the future, fall and spring, and the training they were doing for those races is on pause.

At least, that’s what Asuma told all of them before revealing he’d signed the dozen of them, the kids committed to the club, up for a recreational ride in Seattle.

The location was not lost on any of them, and Iruka sighs, fogs up the glass of the window. 200 miles in two days, but at least the weather will be cooler than down in the armpit of California. He’s damn tired, and though he knows that they’re going to stay in Oregon longer--Anko mentioned her grandparents have a cabin on the coast, and Asuma has family living in Portland itself--they all have to get through 200 miles before that.

Iruka slides down a little in his seat, hopes that it won’t be  _ too _ painful.

-

“There’s apparently ten thousand people riding,” Anko says, double-checking her seat and her water bottle racks.

Iruka lets out a breath, straps his gloves on, and peers out over the crowd. She could very well be right, because there’s nothing but a sea of bikes and helmets as far as he can see. “Did they have a signup cap this year?” he asks, skimming to see if there are any familiar faces. Nobody he can identify from a distance.

“Apparently,” Anko says again, straps her gloves on as well, and claps Iruka on the shoulder. They’re riding buddies. Asuma says that if one of them passes out the other has to call the SAG wagon to pick them up. “Ready for this?”

“More than you,” Iruka counters, allowing something of a smirk to tug his lips up. Anko is working on her endurance, but she’s focused on sprints, and she smacks him where she had just patted.

“I’m better than I used to be,” she says, and that much is true.

The announcer finally gets going, and after some talk, they’re off. Iruka keeps a pretty easy pace, because the name of the game in a ride that long is pacing.

200 miles though? No biggie. Iruka’s the team’s all-rounder and eats mileage like it’s fucking ice cream. Plus the day starts out at the perfect degree of chilly, and most of the pull offs have nut butter packets that he can hoard away.

-

Iruka is more than ready to keep going by the time they get to the midpoint. Yeah it’s early afternoon, but his legs feel good and he usually doesn’t really hit his stride until mile 120. On the other hand, Anko looks sort of dead and he doesn’t want to abandon her, especially since they’re the first ones from their team to make it to the college, other than Asuma and Kurenai with the vans containing all of their shit.

So he stretches, walks around and downs maybe three packets of nut butter. Anko had immediately abandoned him upon hearing that there was a chiropractor and several massage therapists set up for the cyclists to take advantage of, but it’s fine by him. Though they’ve never done the Seattle to Portland before (Asuma did, once, before he’d moved to California and started working at UC Irvine) Iruka knows that people come from all over the world to do it, and Asuma and Kurenai already have a group of cyclists congregated around, all talking races and bike specs.

It’s a decent way to end the day, once dinner is served; spaghetti,  _ carbs _ , and company.

-

Anko’s rear flats when they are in the middle of nowhere, and judging by how far they are from the last pull off, they still have a couple miles until the next one. They could always just call Kurenai to pick them up, but Iruka does have a patch kit in one of his back pockets, and Anko always keeps a hand-pump.

“You could keep going, I can catch you back at the next pull off,” Anko says, sounding less winded than the day before as she flips her frame, begins systematically squishing her tire to find the puncture. 

“And if you go flat in between here and there?” he asks, grimacing as he adjusts his bib straps.

“True,” Anko snaps out a wedgie, squats and begins patching the hole she found. “Making good time, anyway. I think Genma and Raidou weren’t going to do the whole ride; both of ‘em had bad leg cramps last night.”

“Probably best if they don’t, Raidou’s still having problems with his ankles,” Iruka leans on his handlebars, watches her finish the patch and shoves the plastic bag holding the patch kit back into his pocket while she pumps the tire up. “Good?”

“We good,” she says, spins the tire once before setting the bike upright.

They’re still on the side of the road when the lanky guy wearing a Giro jersey followed by another guy wearing all-over, eye-searing green slowed to a stop a few yards behind them.

“Either of you got a patch kit?” the lanky guy asks, and now that they’re stopped Iruka vaguely recognizes them from the evening before. The guy in the Giro gear had been talking about sprints with Asuma.

“Yeah,” Iruka fishes it out, tosses it to him. The guy looks surprised at that, even more so when Anko heads out, Iruka after her. “You can give it back at the finish!” Iruka calls back.

-

Making up for lost time is easy enough, and Anko doesn’t complain when Iruka ups the pace. The riding itself is calming; Kurenai equates it to meditation (Asuma calls her a hippie) and Iruka can’t help but agree. He’s so into it he doesn’t realize they’re heading into Portland until Anko yells, “Three miles left!”

Three miles is a good sprint, and Anko somehow finishes a few yards in front of him. But then she nearly collapses and he’s fine, so it evens out.

“Iruka!” comes the yell from Asuma, because of course he and Kurenai are waiting for them, slushies in hand.

“How’d we do?” Iruka asks, a little breathless after the last sprint, when he wheels his bike over.

“First ones here,” Kurenai says, gives him a hearty fist-bump. “A surprising amount of people made it in last night, apparently, but you two are ahead of the pack.”

“Suzume’s picked up Genma and Raidou, they should be here in half an hour or so,” Asuma adds, slapping a fresh nicotine patch on his inner arm. Anko comes slogging up, and dumps one of her more full water bottles over her own head. Asuma beams at her, “How you doing?”

“Why did we have to do this, but you’re exempt?” she whines, unzipping her jersey and dropping it on the ground, followed by her gloves and the cap she wears under her helmet.

Asuma shrugs, grins. In the words he was very fond of telling them, no pain, no gain.

-

The lanky guy finds him in the beer garden, the bag holding Iruka’s patch kit in one hand, an already-opened IPA in the other.

“Make it alright?” Iruka asks, accepting the bag. 

“Gai, uh, the guy in all green,” the man says, sitting down in the fold up chair next to him, “got two flats. We limped in half an hour ago. Kakashi Hatake.”

“Iruka Umino,” Iruka returns, toasting Kakashi with his half-gone beer. “How long have you been riding?”

“Four years.” Iruka whistles, he can’t imagine biking for only four years then taking on the STP. “Took it up when I had to take a break from running. And you?”

“Uh, over fifteen years, ten years competitively,” Iruka says, and it’s Kakashi’s turn to whistle as he flushes.

They actually end up talking for quite a while, aided maybe by Anko bringing over way too many plates of yakisoba from the Hawaiian stand and the guy in all green, Gai, appearing. Gai and Kakashi are older but not by much; Kakashi just finished his master’s at PSU, Gai with a year left at the same school compared to Anko just entering her master’s and Iruka with one year left of his (multiple) bachelor’s.

Anko and Gai left before Kakashi and Iruka, both of them on the drunk side of tipsy but getting along like a house on fire. Iruka does momentarily feel the urge to notify Asuma, but it is amusing enough and  _ he’s _ tipsy enough that he lets it go. And he feels just disarmed enough by Kakashi, who’s also in education (secondary), and who has a perfectly dry sense of humor.

Once they’re out of sight, Kakashi stands, stretches and lets out a pained groan when his back cracks. “How long you in town?” Kakashi asks, slinging his CamelBak over one shoulder.

“A few weeks,” Iruka shrugs, digs his phone out of the back pocket and plastic bag it had been in, checks the calendar. “Yeah, until the tenth.”

His phone is plucked out of his hand by Kakashi, and he doesn’t see what the man is doing but he can guess, and the guess is confirmed when Kakashi hands his phone back and he has a new contact. “Text me,” he says, downs the rest of his second beer and roves away.

-

Iruka wakes up at five the next morning more out of habit than actual wakefulness. They are at what was at one point Asuma’s father’s place (Iruka had met him a couple times, and generally liked him) sprawled out through the living room and family room in sleeping bags.

Being July, though, the sun is up, and there’s no point trying to go back to sleep when Raidou’s already awake (stretching) as is Suzume (texting her girlfriend back in Cali). Iruka picks his way to the bathroom, cleans up and changes, feeling mostly ready for the day.

On a whim, or something of that sort, he gets his phone, and the screen that it opens on is the new contact from the night before. Kakashi, with a dog emoji next to it. Even more on a whim, or maybe just general stupidity, he texts.

_ know any good place to get coffee at this ungodly hour? _

He waits maybe two minutes before his phone buzzes.

_ u been to voodoo yet? _

_ no _

_ txt me address, ill pick u up _

Iruka types and sends it without hesitation, and only when he’s out the door to meet the only somewhat broken down navy blue Vespa does he realise that maybe this is a date.


End file.
